UDC Timecode Makes its Debut at Trade Shows with Riverview Systems Group

	Symantec's booth at the RSA Security Conference

Corporate event production company Riverview Systems Group Inc. of Milpitas, California has become the first company to utilize UDC Timecode, a new feature in the protocol translation portion of High Resolution Systems' UDC Pro Plus package. UDC Timecode enables users of the popular UDC (Universal Device Controller) software to sync with external timecode or turn UDC in to a timecode generator itself.

Riverview often needs to automate video and lighting cues simultaneously at clients' trade show booths. "A couple of systems would allow us to do that, but they required complicated programming and required significant resources to implement," says Derek Ytreeide, technology specialist with Riverview Systems Group.

"We had worked with Drew and Mike Taylor at High Resolution before and became familiar with UDC," he continues. "We had a client who needed a big video playback system at a trade show. We figured UDC would work perfectly to trigger the video, but we had to go further -- we needed to trigger the lighting cues, too. We could stripe timecode on the video roll or use an external timecode generator. But UDC had an internal timecode generator already, so High Resolution explored programming UDC to send out a timecode signal, while using a Kiss-Box transceiver in between. Once High Resolution wrote the code, we tested the new UDC Timecode feature and decided to use it at the show."

UDC Timecode made its debut at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco for Riverview's client, Symantec. "Conference goers walked into the theater within the Symantec booth where three 90" and eight 40" displays played individual videos which were all synchronized simultaneously from five playback machines," Ytreeide explains. "We needed to trigger a library of three videos and an interstitial loop simultaneously from Playback Pro, combined with six lighting cues from our grandMA2 system."

An additional complication emerged when Symantec wanted to tailor the videos displayed on the screens to specific clients that walked into the theater. The videos would not play in a scheduled or random order.

"A lot of systems are timeline-based with scheduled events; few are cue-based using commands which are independent of each other," Ytreeide notes. "UDC Timecode proved to be an amazing solution for us, allowing us to do what Symantec required."

Riverview was so pleased with UDC Timecode that it decided to implement the software at the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) conference in Chicago for their client Zimmer.

"UDC Timecode will act as central control software performing two different functions: generating timecode to control the grandMA2 lighting console in the main theater and generate timecode for two sub-theaters where videos are shown, but not on a set schedule," he explains. "We'll have absolute control of the house lights and videos and can trigger the video wall to funnel people from the theater to a hands-on demo experience."

UDC Timecode is available now for customers who have a Protocol Translation license on UDC Pro Plus.